30 years of bisexuality in Russia (1993-2023)

Thesis

This thesis is the first to uncover the specific cultural history of bisexuality in Russia. I chart bisexual sources and voices across a thirty-year period: from 1993, when male homosexuality was decriminalised in Russia, to 2023, when the 'international LGBT movement' was branded an extremist organisation. By this time, the national ban on ‘propaganda of non-traditional relations’ had been extended to the entire population. This choice of time frame, bookended by near opposite legislative milestones, has allowed me to trace how attitudes towards—and experiences of—bisexuality have fluctuated throughout a period where LGBTQ+ adults were theoretically legally able to date and express same-sex desire semi-openly in Russia before it became completely unsafe and illegal to do so. Each chapter contributes to identifying an archive of previously unresearched Russian bisexual voices. The structure aims to reconstruct the language and information environments that Russian bisexuals may have been able to access at different times in the period, and to reflect on how these potentially shaped possibilities for (self-)understanding. I then use this contextualisation to illuminate cultural images of bisexuality and establish the ways in which certain themes reverberate across multiple spheres of entertainment, or have, by contrast, been challenged by queer creative teams invested in grounding artistic representations of bisexuality in lived experiences. Specifically, the chapters focus on: discussions of bisexuality in the independent lesbian and gay press of the 1990s and early 2000s; the evolution of bisexuality in the content and structures of landmark LGBTQ+ Russian-language websites; the mobilisation of bisexuality as a plot device in film and music videos; and the bisexual dimensions of plot, character, and aesthetics in literature and poetry. This multi-disciplinary approach provides a holistic view of how bisexual themes, people, and characters have been (self-)represented across the period.

Authors: Dowling, R

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-g7pbybbze
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: Russian, English
• Keywords: periodicals; queer; LGBTQ; internet; literature; film; bisexual; Russia
• Subjects: Bisexual history, Russian; Erotic literature, Russian; Gay men's writings, Russian; Bisexual people's writings, Russian; Lesbians' writings, Russian